Chapter 4 - The Hidden Room Behind the Mirror
Nadia had avoided her childhood home for eleven years.
When she stood outside it again, she could barely breathe.
The building had become abandoned.
The windows were dusty.
The garden had grown wild.
The front door groaned open.
Dragan entered first.
Dario followed.
Nadia stepped inside last.
The smell hit her immediately.
Old fabric.
Dust.
Wood.
And something faintly floral.
Rosemary.
Her mother's scent.
She stopped.
Dragan noticed.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
“I remember.”
They moved through the rooms.
The kitchen.
The bedroom.
The sewing workshop at the rear.
Nadia touched the old sewing machine.
Her mother had taught her to sew here.
She had also hidden beneath the table here during thunderstorms.
Dragan stood near the mirror.
“This one?”
Nadia nodded.
“That was hers.”
He examined the frame.
A click sounded.
The mirror shifted.
A narrow door appeared.
Nadia stared.
“She never showed me this.”
Dragan opened it.
Behind it was a tiny room.
Inside were boxes.
Documents.
Photographs.
And an old cassette recorder.
Nadia approached slowly.
On top of everything lay an envelope with her name.
NADIA.
Her hands shook.
She opened it.
“My little bird,
If you are reading this, then I was unable to protect you long enough to explain everything.”
Nadia covered her mouth.
The letter continued.
“I need you to know that your father did not abandon us willingly.”
She stopped.
Dragan stood behind her.
She continued reading.
“Someone forced him to disappear because he discovered what the Hawthorne factory was transporting.”
Nadia's eyes widened.
Transporting what?
She read on.
“People.”
Her stomach turned.
The factory had been used as a temporary holding site for trafficked workers.
Her mother had discovered it.
She had tried to expose it.
Her father had helped.
That was why he vanished.
Nadia sat on the floor.
“He wasn't dead.”
“No.”
“He was alive.”
“Possibly.”
“There must be more.”
There was.
Another note.
“Trust Petar Kovac’s son.”
Nadia looked at Dragan.
“You.”
He nodded.
Her mother had known his family.
She had trusted them.
The last line of the letter read:
“Do not trust the Hawthorne who smiles the brightest.”
Nadia immediately thought of Clarissa.
Then another sound came from outside.
A car door slammed.
Dragan turned.
“Stay here.”
He walked toward the window.
Headlights appeared.
Three vehicles.
Dario raised his weapon.
“Company.”
Dragan looked at Nadia.
“Take the documents.”
“I won't leave you.”
“You're not leaving me.”
He stepped closer.
“You're protecting the evidence.”
Gunfire erupted.
Windows shattered.
Nadia grabbed the boxes.
Dragan and Dario returned fire.
They escaped through the rear workshop.
Nadia ran through the garden clutching the documents.
A bullet struck the fence beside her.
She stumbled.
Dragan grabbed her waist and pulled her behind a wall.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Good.”
They moved again.
A vehicle sped away.
Dario returned moments later.
“They're gone.”
Dragan looked at the house.
“They wanted the papers.”
Nadia held the box tightly.
“They didn't get them.”
Dragan smiled faintly.
“That's why you're still alive.”
Back at the townhouse, they examined the documents.
One ledger contained names.
A list of shipments.
And a signature.
Clarissa's father.
Another document carried a familiar company seal.
Kind Beauty.
Nadia frowned.
“Her cosmetics company?”
Dragan nodded.
“It may not be as legitimate as it looks.”
The next morning, news broke that Kind Beauty had acquired three overseas suppliers.
The deals looked ordinary.
But hidden in the contracts were shell companies linked to old Hawthorne accounts.
Clarissa had inherited the network.
She had not merely entered the Hawthorne family.
She had been part of the system.
Theodore was devastated.
“I didn't know.”
Dragan stared at him.
“You should have known.”
Theodore lowered his head.
“You're right.”
Nadia watched him.
“Did Clarissa manipulate you?”
Theodore looked at her.
“I thought she loved me.”
Nadia felt pity.
Then anger.
“She knew about my mother.”
“I believe she did.”
“Why did she come here?”
Theodore had no answer.
Dragan did.
“To find the missing pages.”
Nadia remembered Clarissa's obsession with the old house.
The questions.
The humiliation.
The hair.
“She wanted me distracted.”
“Yes.”
“Why cut my hair?”
Dragan's expression hardened.
“Because she knew it would hurt you.”
Nadia looked down.
Then something clicked.
Her mother had always told her never to throw away hair.
She had said it could be used to identify someone.
Nadia remembered a strange childhood ritual.
Her mother had saved a small braid in a box.
Why?
Dragan immediately understood.
“DNA.”
Nadia looked at him.
“What?”
“Your mother may have preserved evidence inside that braid.”
They returned to the house.
The box was hidden beneath an old floorboard.
Inside was a braid.
A photograph.
And one tiny vial.
Dario arranged for discreet testing.
The result came two days later.
The vial contained blood.
Not old dried blood.
Newer.
The label was faded.
But the initials were clear.
A.V.
Nadia stared.
“Anton Voskin.”
Dragan shook his head.
“Your father.”
Nadia's hands trembled.
Her father had left a blood sample behind.
Why?
Because someone had threatened him.
Because he expected to disappear.
And because her mother had known where he was going.
The vial also contained a tiny DNA test strip.
It matched Nadia.
But that was not the shocking part.
Another sample matched the same blood.
A current living donor.
Dario looked at Dragan.
“We found a match.”
Nadia turned.
“Who?”
Dragan looked at the report.
He became very still.
“Your father.”
Nadia could not speak.
“He's alive?”
Dario nodded.
“We found him.”
Dragan took Nadia's hand.
“You're not an orphan.”
The words broke something open inside her.
For eleven years, Nadia had carried grief like a second skeleton.
Now she discovered that one of the people she had mourned might still be alive.
But before they could locate him, another message arrived.
A photograph.
Anton Voskin.
Alive.
Older.
Standing beside a hospital bed.
May you like
And beside him—
Clarissa.
